Issue #39, December 22, 2006

The Black Pearl

by John Capone

This holiday season, you should be aware that valuable contraband could find its way onto your party platter. Nothing can put a stop to your swanky soirée faster than the realization that you are all noshing on the cold ovum of a remarkably ugly endangered species.

The caviar black market is no joke. There are big bucks to be made and the smugglers make Colombians look lazy and unambitious with the sheer tonnage of what they try to sneak into this country. Two companies locals should at least view with suspicion are Manhattan’s Caviar Russe and Caspian Star Caviar, a caviar distributor. The owners of those companies was sentenced to twenty-one months in prison and a $400,000 fine for illegal trafficking of illicit roe.

Last January, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species made a New Year’s resolution to stop the trade of most wild caviar in order to give Caspian sturgeon a chance to recover from over-fishing. The U.S. had already banned the importation of Caspian sturgeon (the source of Beluga caviar, the most sought after in the world) in September of 2005 and Black Sea sturgeon that October. The rules for Caspian caviar are quite simple and echo those of another forbidden vice, Cuban cigars. The caviar can no longer be imported, but existing stocks may be sold legally. There is one exception, albeit with tight regulation – Iran may export a small amount of Sturgeon. This is all well and good, but the thought of year-old warehoused fish is less than appetizing. If you do score some legal Caspian and want to enjoy it while puffing on a Cuban (and why not?), Blue Train Tobacco in East Hampton offers pre-embargo (a.k.a. one-hundred-percent legal) Cuban cigars.

Caviar from farmed sturgeon and paddlefish is perfectly legal to eat and perfectly delicious, if you are the sort who goes for cold fish eggs. These varieties are also perfectly good and cost considerably less than wild-caught roe and you are probably better served by them overall, just as you are probably better off asking the guys at Blue Train what cigars they recommend that were made this decade (and someplace besides Cuba).

But the Hamptons abound with those who go for the gusto – those titans of industry who want it all and will spare no expense. How far is too far? There is no such thing. Just look to Sagaponnack, where Ira Rennart’s 100,000-square-foot mansion with twenty-nine bedrooms, two bowling alleys and thirty-nine bathrooms sits adjacent to Peter’s Pond. Oversized is not big enough. Rennart’s house takes up an entire page all by itself on Google Maps. Rennert didn’t just buy a two-and-a-half ton Hummer like other rational rich folks do – he bought military contractor AM General, the company that makes Hummers. And then he sold a majority stake to Georgica Pond’s, Ron Perelman, for $930 million in 2004. Neighborly, I’d say. When these guys get together for wintertime cocktails and holiday festivities, they don’t order in paté. Nothing less than spreading $500-an-ounce sturgeon roe direct from cool Caspian waters will do for these bad boys.

“The sturgeon must die peacefully,” says Eve Vega, the caviar expert at Petrossian Russian restaurant in Manhattan, a Mecca for the connoisseur. So, it’s not as simple as hooking tuna. According to Eve, “If she feels threatened, she secretes a sour chemical that will ruin the roe.” How does this peaceful death come? Simple: “With a hammer, to the back of the head.” Now caviar is not for everyone and even the French have been known to turn their noses up at it. The story goes that when an emissary of Peter the Great offered King Louis XV a taste of the delicacy, he was so repulsed that he spat the contents onto the fine Versailles rug. So what do Russians know about caviar? Or the French, for that matter?

You know who does know something about caviar? Apparently, Californians. Those from Sacramento, in particular. Some of the finest caviar available (and one that has tested favorably against the Caspian varieties) hails from the Sacramento white sturgeon and can be had for about $50-$60 an ounce (available from www.petrossian.com or from www.sterlingcaviar.com).

But if you are craving Caspian caviar, there is only one thing to do (especially if you are still annoying your friends with your Borat impression): visit Kazakhstan. The banned caviars are all available and plentiful, in that former Soviet republic. You are free to stuff as much into your face as you want and for considerably less that it would cost you here (even with the cost of the flight factored in. And the hotel. And a special “massage.”) As long as you don’t try to bring any back with you, you’re fine.